Favors for a Ghost
by thesirenwriter
Summary: His only chance at redemption is alone, dying, in a basement. Her survival depends on an irritating illusion. And Cho could tell you exactly what's going on, but he's not going to. A tale in three parts. Jisbon.
1. The Girl's Alive

**Disclaimer: **Alas, _The Mentalist _isn't mine either.

**A/N: **I love these two. They're one of my favorite TV pairings/friendships. Anyway. This story will be told in three parts. I've included "supernatural" as a genre, but that's really up to one's opinion. Please enjoy, and tell me what you think. I've loitered in this fandom for a while, but this is the first time I've written for it. And . . . I think the line breaks look messy. Just saying. But my other formatting techniques were not showing up right.

* * *

**I. THE GIRL'S ALIVE**

* * *

_Patrick Jane would always rescue her, whether she wanted him to or not._

This is what Teresa Lisbon remembers, as she knocks about restlessly at the edge of consciousness, a bullet buried in her abdomen and three locked doors between her and safety.

* * *

At this moment, he wishes he was anything but human. He wishes he was something stronger, something smarter – something more monstrous. Something that could tear answers from the throat of the scumbag sitting on the other side of the glass. Anything to help him find her, because he knows that she's out there somewhere, somewhere dark and godforsaken, and she's bleeding.

_And she's waiting for him._

* * *

It's been too many years.

Jane is part of her subconscious, but then, the man can pretty much worm his way in anywhere. She's still passed out, and she knows it, but there's a frighteningly, comfortingly real figment of her imagination standing in the corner, and it wears a waistcoat and runs its hand through blond curls. It doesn't face her – looks instead, pensively, through the cracks between the boards on the window.

"I forgive you, okay?" she croaks, and she thinks her throat shouldn't hurt so much if she's asleep.

He glances over at her, uneasy. "What's that, Lisbon?"

"If I die before you get here. It wasn't your fault. You're only human, Jane. I know you'll figure out where I am, in that infuriating way of yours – but if you figure it out too late, it's okay." She sighs. "I don't know why I'm telling _you_. You're in my head."

"Funny, isn't it?" He looks cheerful now, practically beaming. "Me in your head, I mean. Not you being shot. That's horrible. But I'm terribly realistic, don't you think? You've been spending far too much time with me."

"Shut up, Jane," she says, because he _is _terribly realistic, and something about that pains her.

_Because it's not real. It's not him. You might never see him again. _

Still, as she closes her eyes (goes to sleep in her dream, which doesn't seem safe, if she'd stop to think about it), Dream Jane manifests beside her and strokes her cheek, and murmurs something affectionate that nearly makes her smile.

* * *

He can see her, every time he closes his eyes. It's really horrible how vivid his imagination is. His mind paints for him a ghastly picture of her blood draining out onto cold, dusty concrete. She drifts in and out of consciousness. Her eyes squeeze shut against the pain. She speaks, but he can't hear what she's saying.

He is stricken with the thought of never hearing her scold him again.

_Can you remember the last time you were this terrified?_

And he grabs that fear, and he strangles it. Feeds on it. Turns it in on itself until it has become a seething anger, then a cold, detached hatred. Sitting silently in her office, where no one else dares to tread, he strips away layers of Patrick Jane. That person isn't strong enough for this. And he's found that it is so much easier to be someone else when you can mentally give yourself away. It's easier if you can compartmentalize.

He gives his humanity to Teresa for safe-keeping – it has been hers for a long time, he thinks – and then he goes to find Cho.

* * *

She wakes. Or, she thinks she does, but then she sees Dream Jane sitting nearby, rolling a gold coin over his knuckles and looking carefully forlorn.

He notices her watching. "Ah, Lisbon. You're up – do you want to see a coin trick?"

"No, Jane. I do not want to see a _coin trick_."

He clucks at her, shaking his head.

"Still so irritable. I guess that's a good sign." With a snap of his fingers, the coin vanishes. She can't decide if it's sleight of hand or the dream talking. Dream Jane shrugs. "But it's your fault, you know. I wouldn't be around here if it weren't for you, and there's nothing around here to do. Thus, I'm bored."

"Oh, well, heaven forbid you get a little bored once in a while. And I'm not irritable. You're just an incorrigible little child."

She blinks, and he's right beside her. It would be nice if he stopped doing that – Jane with teleportation abilities is scarier a notion than she feels like entertaining.

"How are you feeling?" he asks, absently straightening the collar of her shirt.

". . . Okay, actually. It really doesn't hurt that much anymore."

He frowns. "That isn't good, Lisbon."

"It's not good that I've been shot, either. Or that I'm apparently unconscious."

"You're not unconscious. I'm a hallucination – which yes, also isn't good, but, anyway, at least I'm here to keep you awake. As you've told me countless times, I can be a bit of a nuisance."

"Ha-hallucination . . . ? _Oh god_."

_There's no escaping him._

And she closes her eyes out of exasperation, but a moment later another wave of exhaustion hits her. The tension in her shoulders gives out.

"Lisbon? Lisbon, it isn't nap time."

"You're not real," she moans. Somehow, on the verge of sleep, it sounds like a valid argument. Was it just her, or was Dream Jane – Hallucination Jane? – more frustrating than the original?

_Or maybe, in these circumstances, just more desperate._

Not that she cares to think about that now, when she feels so much better. She can hardly feel the concrete floor. The dust doesn't irritate her nose. With little difficulty, she can nearly feel herself back in her bed at home, as if everything had been part of a dream. The case, the call, the ambush, all of it. And she could wake up, in a little while, and she would go to work. Greet Cho in the hallway. Find Jane, having broken into her office, asleep on the couch . . .

The sound of glass shattering ruptures her thoughts – the sharp knife of light that crashes across her face jolts her awake.

"JANE!" She surprises herself by bringing up a hand to shield her eyes. She'd been too sluggish to move earlier.

"Awake yet?" he asks, tone just slightly taunting.

"If you wanted me to open my eyes, that's _not _the way to do it." She's squinting even now; the sudden contrast in the room's light is so stark. Peering around her hand, she sees that he's torn a board off one of the windows and used it to break the fogged-over glass. He's still holding the board.

Well, isn't that something. He looks almost _sorry_.

"It was more to get your attention, than anything."

He is beside her, then, the board left behind on the floor. And for a hallucination, he's startlingly good at keeping the light out of her eyes. If there even is any light. She doesn't feel like trying to pick apart fantasy and reality.

Her eyes are still adjusting. She can't quite make out his features.

"You're the only one who can save me, you know," he says, so quietly, and she can look at nothing but him. Because his voice is soft now, unvarnished. There is a tenderness in his eyes that she doesn't often witness. "The only one I would let save me."

For a second, she forgets he isn't real. And she sees all those cracks – the ones that his smiles, his jests, his cons, try to hide.

"Jane, don't talk like that."

He shakes his head, and he taps his temple. "I'm in your subconscious, remember? I only know what you know."

Her hand grips his knee. "Or maybe I only know that _you _believe that. And it isn't true. Your life is what youchoose to make of it now. It's up to you whether your past consumes you. Believing that you're not strong enough on your own – believing that you need _me_ – is only holding you back."

The smile he gives her is the sort you might use when humoring a small child. "What if I need to be held back, Lisbon?"

The chill of the concrete stabs into her spine.

"What are you talking about?"

And he looks scared then. He takes her hand up into his and looks across the room, up the stairs, and toward the door.

He speaks.

* * *

"_I think I might be capable of horrible things."_

* * *

**Chapter Two's on its way. Reviews are helpful! ;)**_  
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	2. He's on the Edge

**Disclaimer: **Still not claiming ownership.

**A/N: **Chapter 2, and, may I say, Cho is awesome. Of course, Jane and Lisbon have to be my favorites, but I like Cho so much more than all the other characters.

* * *

**II. HE'S ON THE EDGE**

* * *

Kimball Cho is not a superstitious man.

He isn't excitable. He doesn't overreact. In fact, if you were to ask around, people would tell you that he usually doesn't react at all. To anything.

But Kimball Cho, level-headed as he is, also cannot deny the obvious. Even if the truth is unlikely – even if the truth is _impossible_ – he will not disregard it. Doing so would be irresponsible and would hamper his ability to best perform during an operation.

That, and when something's staring you right in the face from three feet away, it would be damn _stupid_ to ignore it.

He couldn't tell you how, but as he was busy coordinating search teams and giving orders (in the boss's absence, he is elected in-charge) Jane managed to catch him alone.

And, as the blonde man pulled him further aside, away from any curious ears, Cho had realized that he was not – or was at least not entirely – Patrick Jane.

"You need to get me in that interrogation room alone, with no interruptions and no intrusions," he'd said, but Cho was only half-listening. Instead, he studied Jane's eyes.

He saw the same thing he's observed in hit men, sociopaths, mass murders, and in gangsters he would cross paths with back when he was with the Playboys. And, that is to say, he saw nothing there. No soul. The eyes were dead, save for some thinly veiled hunger. Some maniacal distortion of human nature.

Cho, being Cho, didn't ignore this. He also acknowledged that there was no point in trying to stop it. As far as he's concerned, today his job isn't about justice – it's about the safe return of Teresa Lisbon. Which, while perhaps not matching the law's definition of justice, certainly matches his own. Jane clearly agreed. And if Jane was a scary interrogator on a normal day . . . well, Cho would be hard-pressed to pass up an opportunity like this. Especially considering the circumstances.

"You're not gonna shoot him?" Cho had asked.

"Oh, no. 'Course not."

"Set him on fire?"

"I will not do that either. Scout's honor."

"Scout's honor's bullshit." But Cho's mind was working again. Remembering who he put on guard duty in front of interrogation. "Fine. How long do you need?"

The Thing That Isn't Jane had smiled. "I think ten minutes should be more than enough."

So now, Cho is personally keeping watch outside of interrogation, ensuring that no one goes into either the room itself or the joint observation room. Jane has been in there for two minutes, and since no deranged screams of pain have commenced, Cho is reasonably certain that he's made the right decision.

Someday, though, he would really like to know what Jane is saying.

* * *

Dream Jane keeps her awake with office gossip.

"So Holt is a lesbian?" Lisbon asks.

"No, no. You miss my point. She _isn't_ a lesbian, but had the rumor started so people would stop thinking she wanted to sleep with Ron Meshing. She is instead free to pursue her own interests."

"Which would be . . . ?

"Sleeping with Meshing."

"What? That doesn't make any-"

"But it makes perfect sense, my dear Lisbon. Holt wants to date Meshing, but she doesn't want anyone else to know. So in the rumor mill, she becomes a lesbian. Then she blatantly denies being a lesbian, so everyone will be _positive _that she _is_ a lesbian, thus squashing the less juicy rumor that she wants to date Meshing. And then, having successfully misled everyone but yours truly, she can safely commence sleeping with Meshing without having to look over her shoulder. The only problem is that Heather – or as you know her, the lovely Ms. Baker from the front desk – is now surreptitiously trying to set Holt up with Diana McNeilson. Who isn't a lesbian either, but that's an entirely different story."

Lisbon shakes her head. "Why do you even know all this?"

He shrugs. "It's impossible to miss when you're me."

"Then it's a good thing I'm not you."

"Yes. I could foresee some headaches if there were two of me at the CBI."

"Headaches would be the least of the problems . . ."

He leans down and kisses her forehead, then. Lisbon jumps a little - looks bewildered.

"What was _that_?"

"What was what?"

"That! You just-"

"I did nothing of the sort."

She looks at him sideways, with that look she uses when she_ just knows_ he's about to go call the suspect's mother a fat cow, or something. "I'm watching you, buster."

Dream Jane grins.

* * *

"We have an address," Cho announces, and all at once the office is thrown into frenzy.

Rigsby wants to know how Cho got it out of him. Papers are flying around. People are standing up, getting ready to move. A chorus of phone calls goes out. Everyone's been waiting for this moment. Cho barely needs to give any directions. He just walks over to his desk and begins his own preparation.

Van Pelt asks, "Where's Jane?"

And Cho is tactful here, almost kind. Because he is aware that Grace Van Pelt possesses a child-like wonder when it comes to the blonde maybe-psychic, and it's a wonder that doesn't need to be broken today.

"I've already told him," says Cho. "He's getting ready."

But The Thing That Isn't Jane is still in interrogation. He wanted an extra five minutes.

* * *

Lisbon is slipping. Dream Jane knows the signs.

He tries to keep up the banter, but her answers come more slowly. He tries to provoke her, but she only gives him side-long glances.

He wishes he could do more. It's difficult, not being real. He wants to put pressure on the wound, but as she is fading so is he, and his hand only settles briefly on her torso before passing through it.

"I'm on my way, Lisbon," he assures her. "I'll be here soon."

"Fine, Jane," she breathes.

She doesn't care what he says anymore.

He finds that he's scared.

* * *

Lisbon is dying.

Jane – the one that's currently sitting in the back of the CBI van, which is screaming down the highway, sirens blaring – knows it on a purely emotional level. And he doesn't close his eyes, not even as the afternoon sun splinters on the horizon and crashes through the window. He needs to keep this strength up a little longer. He needs to not care, for both their sakes. It wouldn't do to panic now.

There are just _so many things_ he hasn't said to her, his Lisbon. But he doesn't let himself think about that.

Compartmentalize.

Trick of the trade.

* * *

"I forgive you Jane," she says for the second time that afternoon.

"There's nothing to forgive me for," he insists. He's so close to her, so near to holding her hands. But he can't. She doesn't feel him. "I'm almost here. I'm going to make it in time – just see. I'll be crashing down those stairs and waking all the neighbors at any moment. Imagine all the trouble I must have caused in your absence."

"Jane . . . tell my brother . . ."

And he's desperate now. He doesn't know why he can't be _him_ – can't be the real Jane – and he's shushing her. _No last words. No messages. I can't deliver them anyway, and I won't need too. Just watch._

And somewhere, pocketed deep in her mind, Teresa curses herself for being the second woman to leave him.

* * *

**Reviews are not only welcome, they are hoped for. And I hope you all are enjoying this. Thanks for reading.**


	3. They're In the Dark

**Disclaimer: **No. Just . . . no.

**A/N: **The finale! Thank you so much, everyone who has read and reviewed. I love and appreciate all contact.

* * *

**III. THEY'RE IN THE DARK**

* * *

Night has fallen by the time they find the dirt road. In their haste, they've overtaken the ambulance and several other CBI vehicles. Rigby stays at the turn-off to wave them down; when they reach another fork in the road, they drop off Van Pelt, Jane offering strangled assurances that they won't need back-up, only ample medical attention.

"How much farther?" Cho asks. It's dark, hard to navigate. Tree branches litter the road, as do large swathes of fallen leaves that look like road kill until the headlights hit them.

"Too far," replies Jane, quietly enough that Cho might have misheard him, but then the trees thin ahead of them, a rough gravel driveway reveals itself, and Cho must focus on getting them up the final hill.

They've found it, but Cho wonders if Jane knows something he doesn't.

* * *

She becomes aware, first, of the dust.

It swirls around her so that she can feel it dancing against her skin, like something has just come through and kicked it up again. And then, there is light blooming around her like an old film bursting into view. A slice of drywall, a swatch of unfinished hardwood. She recognizes the grimy yellow hall light of the shack. And she realizes she is standing up.

Everything falls into place, then. Impossibly, she is standing unwounded in the hallway outside the basement door, only it's much longer than she remembers, and it's as though she's in a vacuum. There is no sound. No sense of time. Before her, down the stairs, the basement door is ajar, the light on within, and behind her police lights flash against the walls. The front door hangs open.

_Am I dead? Is the team here . . . ?_

Footsteps ahead of her. A blonde man wearing a waistcoat is ascending the stairs, hands casually in his pants pockets. He stops when he sees her, fixing her with a curious gaze.

She can just make out his face, even though he's still in the shadows, and it startles her.

"You're not Jane," she says, and reaches for her hip before remembering that her gun was thrown out the car window on the way there.

The man smirks. "Well, now, I don't think either one of us is up for a philosophical debate – or a metaphysical one – at the moment, or I might protest that assumption."

"What are you doing here?"

He pretends to be taken aback for a moment, and then smirking once more, he steps off the stairs toward her. Instinctively, she moves back a step.

"I could ask you the same thing. Shouldn't you be in there?" he asks, nodding over his shoulder.

She glances at the basement door. Unconsciously, she touches the place where the wound should be. "Am I dead?"

There's something chilling about the man with Jane's face, something terribly off about him. Perhaps a mean line in the forehead, or a dreadful slant to the eyes. Altogether, a heavy pall has fallen over the hallway. The lights seem dimmer. He's responsible for it. Must be. His eyes are dark, but possess this smoldering quality, and it's as though they're laughing at her.

"I should certainly hope not."

And he's strolling toward her now, and she can't quite move. She doesn't quite feel she _needs to_, except for this subtle dread that fills her as he stops at her side. And she knows he can read it on her face so easily, as easily as _he_ can – and can probably _feel it_ rolling off her in waves.

Something akin to a natural smile, but falling a bit short of one, crosses his lips.

"You should know, I would never harm _you_, Teresa."

His lips are cold on her cheek. Deathly, but with a ghost of tenderness. It's unpleasant in its incompleteness. From his solemn expression when he pulls away, he is well aware of the effect.

"I think the world is . . . 'safer' for having you in it," he muses. It sounds vaguely like a compliment.

He continues walking toward the front door, and suddenly she feels she can move again. She whips around, desperate to keep him in sight.

"Where are you going?" she demands. She hasn't even asked him who he is. _What_ he is.

"Don't worry," he calls over his shoulder. "I'm sure I'll be around. Though, you'd do well to watch out for yourself if you want to be there to keep me in check."

"Wait a second!"

"Do that for me, Lisbon?"

"Jane!"

He is gone before he reaches the door, dissipated into the shadows between the police lights. Lisbon takes a step forward, then sighs and falls back against the wall.

_What am I supposed to make of _that_? Can't he at least make sense when I imagine him?_

If she imagined him at all. She can't comprehend why something so . . . almost _tragically_ fiendish would be stalking around in her head. But if not some kind of dream, then what?

"Lisbon?"

She looks up.

"Lisbon, come on now."

There's sound now, seeping slowly from the basement door. And somewhere behind her, she can hear sirens.

Another voice. "Is she breathing?"

Even as she stands up, she feels tired. It slams into her all at once. She stumbles a little toward the glowing basement doorway. Her knees ache, and the police lights blink off behind her. Then the light bulb suspended from the ceiling. And then all she can see is the basement light, as it become a very fine point in the distance . . .

She closes her eyes.

* * *

Opens them.

Barely. She sees gold through trembling lashes.

Everything hurts.

Blink.

Opens her eyes again. Wider, this time.

_Jane._

Is it him?

Blink.

She can feel hands, so warm, on her forearms.

Blink.

"There. There you are. Lisbon? Lisbon, don't try to talk. No. I take that back. Say something."

Blink.

He looks _so happy_. So desperately happy, complete. He's golden. It has to be him this time.

"What did you do?" she demands, and she sounds weak but suitably perturbed.

He grins. Brilliantly grins, and there's that twinkle in his eye. It can't be faked. "Lisbon, I'm hurt. Why must you _always_ assume that I've done something?"

"Because _I know you_. The second I look away, you find trouble."

He looks devilishly proud of himself.

But she's smiling too, even as Cho is silently tending to the gunshot wound (and perhaps looking a little bit relieved).

Her head is throbbing. Jane's hand is so comfortable against her cheek that she leans into it. "I probably have a pile of paperwork waiting for me, don't I?"

"We'll have Cho do it. You'll be off for a while, anyway. Lots of bed rest. You can watch you TiVo. I can come over and make tea."

"You will _not_."

Thunderous stomping overhead accompanies the arrival of the medics. They'll be shooing him away from her in a minute, and loading her onto a stretcher. She'll be caught up in hospital crap for hours.

"Jane," she says.

"Yes Lisbon?"

"Thanks. For getting here in time."

He strokes her cheek with his thumb. His features are soft now, nothing like those of the man she met earlier, departing in the dark hallway. Yet, she's seen him that cold before, hasn't she? On other cases.

"_He's mine . . . You try to stand in my way and you . . ."_

_"__I think I might be capable of horrible things."_

She decides she's not going to think anymore. Her mind has had more than enough stimulation for the evening.

"Well . . . I did tell you I'd always save you, didn't I?"

"That you did," she says.

"Whether you wanted me to or not."

"Yes Jane."

"And I'm assuming you wanted me to, in this case. Unless of course you had a plan, which I would never doubt for a moment exists and would surely have been quite fantastic-"

"Jane. I'm tired."

"Of course, Lisbon."

He kisses her cheek, then, and she can only smile.

_Because it's Jane. _

* * *

_.. Epilogue .._

* * *

Kimball Cho is not a superstitious man, but he is willing to believe in miracles.

He and Rigsby are the only ones left in the basement. Jane and Van Pelt have gone with the boss to the hospital, and the crime scene techs are sweeping around upstairs. By all accounts they should be investigating a murder, but impossibly, the charge stands at "attempted."

Not to mention kidnapping, assaulting a state agent, grand theft, and a slew of others, so long as Jane hasn't done anything to the suspect that a good lawyer can work with.

"Hey, look at this." Rigsby is next to the windows on the other side of the room, looking down toward his feet.

"That's a board," says Cho.

"Yeah. I know it's a board. But it was torn off recently – not as much dust on it. And the window's broken. Think she was trying to get out?"

Cho walks over to him, casually avoiding the puddle of blood in the middle of the floor. "Nah. Window's too small. Even for the boss."

"Hm. Maybe she was just trying to see outside then. Damn – I'm glad we found her." He looks down at the board for a second more. "Well, I'm gonna go see if they've got anything upstairs. You coming?"

"Yeah."

Cho is looking at the board. There's something wrong with it. He listens to Rigsby climb the stairs, hears him call something to one of the CSU guys. Then he kneels down and studies it more closely.

It's been a long day. He could be imagining things.

But it's the fingerprints. They wrap around the board, exactly how one would hold it in order to ram it through the window. And they're bigger than the boss's fingers would be, even allowing for smudging.

They're a man's fingerprints.

Of course, the suspect could have pulled the board off in order to taunt her. Broken the window in an attempt to make her feel hopeless. So close to escape, and yet so far, and all that.

But shooting her and leaving her in a dark basement would have done that too. In fact, when Cho had first gone at him, he'd spoken as though dumping Lisbon had been little more than a chore. The amusement only occurred when he discovered how desperate they were to find her. So torturing her with some last bit of daylight wasn't likely to have crossed his mind . . .

Besides, wouldn't daylight have given her something to hold on to?

Cho stands, and takes one last look around the basement. It's dirty, cold, demoralizing. It's in the middle of nowhere. She'd laid there for hours, alone.

The boss is a strong woman, though. And Kimball Cho is willing to believe in miracles.

He just doesn't think he'll mention them anytime soon.

* * *

**The End! How was that? What was your favorite part? Honestly, I think my favorite scene to write was Lisbon's little hallway encounter. That, followed by the "office gossip" scene.**


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